What It's Like
by theboardwalkbody
Summary: Adam Ross comforts a roommate after he finds out she suffers from a disorder he's all too familiar with. Sort of follow-up piece to 'Breaking Point', with this being set several years after, but the other doesn't need to be read prior to this. (OC unnamed due to wanting to allow reader-insert though I may name her and have this become a multi-chapter fic).
The falling sun shone orange and yellow through the open window of her 7th floor apartment, casting elongated shadows on the far wall where the objects throughout the apartment intersected the light. Sounds of Friday-evening rush hour traffic were accompanied by a soft, warm breeze flowed in from the city outside. The sounds weren't jarring like they had been when she'd first moved in, now they had faded to white noise. She sat hunched over her desk, the screen opened to some social media site, and the desk lamp casting the work surface in a hazy yellowed glow. It was quite a tranquil site, a perfect spring evening to relax. But none of these things she noticed. She could hear nothing but her own thoughts; disconnected and overbearing, and she could focus on nothing but the back of her hand as she held it to her face and, one by one, pulled the lashes of her eyes from their homes. Unyielding she pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled… unaware of the minutes that were passing and edging closer and closer to the hour mark. It was easy to lose track of time during one of these bouts.

More minutes passed, more lashes were pulled, and she was still oblivious to the outside world until, suddenly, the front door opened and her roommate entered. She knew what time he typically got home, but she hadn't realized what time it was. The sudden noise was jarring and she jumped in response; her fingers pinching her eyelid as she did so due to the action she was performing and she yelped in pain. Her roommate noticed the placement of her hand over her face, its position in relationship to her eye, and quickly calculated that her yelp wasn't from fear but pain.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked, putting his backpack down and tossing his jacket onto a hook by the door.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." She dismissed, rubbing her eye quickly and then turning back to her computer, trying to resist the urge to resume what she'd been doing.

Her roommate crossed the room and pulled up an additional seat from his own workspace over to her desk. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Adam, I said I'm fine okay?" she said tersely.

"Can you do me a favor then?" he questioned. "Can you look at me for a second?"

She rolled her eyes put complied. "What?"

He noticed right away what he'd thought for a while but couldn't be sure of. Ever since they moved in together he thought he'd noticed how her eyelashes were either absent completely or else patchy or some combination of both. He kept trying to get a better look but didn't want to flat out ask, either. But now, sitting this close, after what he just thought he saw… he was pretty sure. Her left eyelid was slightly red and puffy, no eyelashes were left there but there was one on her cheek and another by the bridge of her nose. He was sure that if he took a look at her fingers that the fingertips of her index finger and thumb would be red and slightly indented from the pressure of her nails biting into the skin.

He reached up to her face and gently wiped away the loose eyelashes. When she realized what he was doing, that he must surely have seen the emptiness of her eyelids and that there must have been lashes on her cheek she turned away from him again, her jaw tensed – another one of her horrible responses to stress – and her face flushed with shame.

"It's okay." He said. "You don't have to feel bad about it."

She went to stand, she wanted to go lock herself in her room and hide from him, but he put his hand on her arm softly, just enough touch to let her know he wanted her to stay but not enough to trap her.

"Wait – I want to help." He started.

"You can't help." She snapped at him. "No one can."

"I want to try. I want to try to help you. I know what this is and it's okay, you don't have to be embarrassed about it with me." He spoke quickly so she wouldn't interrupt him again.

"You think you know. Maybe you know what it's called but you have no fucking idea what it's like, Adam." She said. Her voice was strained with a mixture of several emotions that were threatening to overtake her.

"I do. I used to do it, too. I know what it's like – the way it makes everything disappear but nothing better, the way it makes you feel worse when it's over, the way the really good ones feel; like pure pleasure. I know how the bad ones hurt, the accidental pinches are enough to bring tears to your eyes. I know what it's like to pull for so long in one go your fingers are sore for hours afterward. The urges to pull out ones that aren't even there, how hard it is to try and stop and not pull out the ones that are. I know what it's like to try and pull out one that's barely poked out of the skin for literal hours and then having to resort to getting using the tweezers to get it out. I know what it's like holding your body so tensed while you do it, and how that tension doesn't go away. I know what it's like regretting doing it even while you're in the middle of it. What it's like hoping they'll grow back, what it's like spending hours researching it online hoping for some quick cure for it and finding out there isn't one, and I know what it's like thinking you're the only one. Thinking no one else understands, and that no one can help you, and that it's hopeless. And I know that that's not even the half of it." He explained, never once looking away from her.

As she listened she began to cry. Everything he said was the truth and more. It was almost like he was reading her feelings and 17 years of her disorder right out of her head.

"Do you want me to try and help you?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Okay then, let's start small: Are you okay?" he asked again.

"I thought I was." She replied, her voice sounded watery from crying.

"What's going on?" He explored.

"Uh…" she thought a moment, "I've got a lot going on this week with school and shit. And next week, too. And the week after, and the week after that…."

"Alright, okay." He didn't want to cut her off but in this case he needed to, he needed to ground her rather than let her mind keep wandering. "Overwhelmed?"

"Yeah." She answered.

"What is it that you need to do immediately? What's due on Monday?" he asked.

She rattled off a laundry list of assignments. "But I've done most of those this morning. I've just got to finish up two medication sheets and two pages of an assessment plan," she finished.

"That's good! How long do you think the medication forms will take?" he asked.

"About… I don't know… 20 minutes. And the assessment form maybe a half hour. I guess it really isn't that bad…." She thought.

"See, you did so much of the work already! An hour tops is what you've got left? That's nothing, you'll have the entire weekend. You can rest tonight and tomorrow after breakfast you'll knock that out and you and I can chill!" he said.

She smiled, "Yeah, I guess it's silly I let it get to me."

"No! No, no no, that's not what I meant, did it sound like that? Oh God no I meant –" he began to stumble his words trying to figure out a way to word his intentions.

She laughed, amused by how flustered he was. She always thought it was cute. "I know what you meant."

"You did?" he asked.

"Yeah. You were trying to get me to realize I was overthinking it, that I was making an ant-hill look like a mountain. That I just needed to take a breath and look at what was the fact of the matter and that I'd realize that I really am basically finished for the weekend. Believe me, Adam, I know all this already. It's just…" she began to explain but he finished for her.

"Anxiety doesn't always allow clear thinking." he nodded in agreement. "I know that, too."

"So now what?" she asked.

"Now…. Now we chill for the night. I will go make us some sundaes because it was such a warm day out today, and really, any weather is ice cream weather let's be real, and you can either keep doing whatever you were doing online or I can kick your ass in Trials." He smiled, getting up from his chair.

"Adam," she sighed, "you know I am absolutely better at that game than you why do you keep doing this to yourself?" She laughed at how sincere she delivered the lie.

"Oh my God! You need to stop living in a fantasy world. I am like, New York City Champion and you know it!" he argued.

"Champion? Now who's living in a fantasy world?" she smiled and stood from her own chair, walking over to the TV and turning it and the Xbox on.

"Look, there's three things I am good at: Hockey, Trials, and Rock Band. You can't deny that." He stated.

"Oh boy, you need some serious cognitive help there, my friend. I own your ass at Rock Band every. Single. Time." She countered.

"You sing! I do all the instruments! It's harder." He tried to defend himself.

"Don't blame me for your own incompetence." She smiled.

"That's it." He said, "I'm not making us ice cream. No Trials. New game plan. One round in Rock Band. Person with the higher score at the end of the song wins. Looser gets their ass down to Snowdays and buys the winner whatever they want."

"Oh yeah, Champion? Hope you're wallet's ready because I'm ordering everything they've got." She snatched up the microphone from the pile of instruments next to the TV stand and waited for Adam.

"You wish. Let's do this." He said storming over and picking up the plastic guitar.

"Ready?" she challenged.

"Ready." He grinned.


End file.
